TO SYLVANUS URBAN, GENT.

On completing his LXXXIXth Volume.

IN

PREFACE.

R

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announcing a continuation of our labours, we have once more to thank our numerous and kind Friends. In taking a Review, however, of the Times, as usual, we feel ourselves much in the situation of Æneas, when he made his perilous journey to visit the shade of his father Anchises. We have to pass a River Styx, and the courts where Minos is sitting in judgment, and inflicting punishment upon various Revolutionary Ixions, Tityuses, and Prometheuses, in order to arrive at those peaceful classical shades, where the spirit of Musaus sings in heavenly strains the grand elementary principles of creative power. We trust, however, that those Giant Sons of Earth, Anarchy and Irreligion, will not remove the mountains which the Parliamentary power of our Constitutional Jupiter has laid upon them.

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In a Country like our own, not dependent upon territory, but on commerce, arts, and a paper circulation, it is impossible that any other than pure selfish Adventurers can desire Revolution, Annihilate the Funds and our Bank Notes, what property is there left in England? We believe that it was Mr. Burke who said, that, if all the real property of England was divided in equal shares among the whole population, there would not be more than one week's subsistence. Commerce could not subsist without security, peace, law, a circulating medium, and property guaranteed. But whence could those arise, in an unsettled state of things Conceive an annual income of fifty millions, spentamong the people, diverted from trade and luxury in the greater part, and the arts thrown for support and encouragement upon the ignorant, who do not regard them. We do not wish to see that venerable matron Britannia, "the Old Lady in Threadneedle-street," placed in a course of the most violent and poisonous medicines by our political quacks, because we believe, that the insulting process would certainly end in her dissolution; and that the treatment would be infamously misapplied to a character, slandered indeed, but

but in truth uncontaminated. Honest men ought to guard so high a family name from such villainous liberties and mischievous designs.

What may be the fittest remedies for political hydrophobia we leave to our authorized and legitimate State-physicians. Standing unmoved on the rock of our Constitution, we trust that SYLVANUS URBAN will preserve the proud attitude of a Guardian of Truth, Piety, Virtue, and Science. Miserable as it is, to see our lower population dispersed, like wild beasts and birds of prey, in search of plunder: grating as is their harsh croak; we yet hope that the rising of the British Lion in power, in the glory of his might, will compel them to fly for safety to the peaceable regions of security and industry. Upon the productive labours of the Nation now wholly depends its possible well-being: for by what other means is the Revenue to be supported, and the population to be fed? Our infatuated Revolutionists cry out for bread, but will only receive a stone. They would support life by inflammatory speeches, and public meetings, and precarious robbery. Pretending to be in a state of starvation, they look not for the spade, but the sceptre. They pray not to their God; and they insult his Providence, which has been pleased to ordain inequality of station, only that the rich may be bankers for the poor, and disperse among them those comforts, which under no other system they could permanently possess.

Where there is no Literature, there is no Civilization: and wretched would be the support which it would derive from the friends of mere factious oratory. Their matter, to please their hearers, must consist of low crude opinions, and erroneous principles. Can Adam Smith be quoted with success among such hearers as our Northern Republicans? If the Bible be despised, will Blackstone be regarded?

The Friends of Literature are therefore called upon to act, as well as the Friends of Order, lest the Barbarians divert the river of public opinion from its channel, in order to bury Science, as their ancestors the Goths did Alarick, in its hollow bed, and so restore the stream, and bury in eternal oblivion its honourable grave.

Dec. 31, 1819.

MINOR CORRESPONDENCE.

We have authority to state, that the Hundred of Mere, noticed in our last vol. p. 525, will be described by Sir R. C. H.; and its interesting Church will not be overlooked. It is in great forwardness, and will be the first of the Wiltshire Hundreds published.

A Correspondent states, in answer to an inquiry in Part I. p. 498, that Sir George Hungerford, of Cadenham, co. Wilts, married Frances daughter of Charles Seymour, baron of Trowbridge, who died anno 1664. He was son of Sir Francis Seymour, third son of Edward Lord Beauchamp, who was created baron of Trowbridge, &c.

Mr. Joseph Daire Bassett assures N. R. (p. 498) "that John Bassett married Eleanora daughter of Sir William Courtenay, of Powderham-castle; that he died some years before his wife, and that she died in Sept. or Oct. 1765; that they, had four children; 1. John Moutague, who died young: 2. Eustachia, married to Mr. Campbell, of Bangerton in Pembrokeshire: 3. Francis, who died unmarried in 1802: and 4. Eleanora, who married John Daire of Orleigh in Devonshire, esq. Francis Bassett left his property by will to Joseph, eldest son and heir of John Daire, who now addresses you, and who will be happy to give you any further information it may be in his power, if you will address to him at Watesmouth, near Ilfracumbe."

E. W. is informed, that what he has sent as coats of arms, from the Church of St. Thomas at Salisbury, are Merchants' marks, which are frequently found on our religious edifices, and were probably put up out of respect to particular Tradesmen, who contributed to the expenses of the building, and who no doubt used those marks in their trade,

ANTIQUARIUS (of Newcastle upon Tyne) expresses his surprise, that when the works of Shakspeare, Dryden, Swift, Johnson, &c. &c. are frequently reprinted, no translation has been given to the publick of any of our old English Historians; and he recommends the subject to the learned in Oxford and Cambridge. But he little considers what a small chance there would be of such works paying their expenses, and profit (we fear) is wholly out of the question. On turning to the evidence of Mr. Owen Rees on the Copyright Acts (p. 450), he will perceive, that the attempt has been actually made. William of Malmesbury has been translated by the Rev. Mr. Sharpe, and published. Matthew Paris has also been translated; but the printing has been abandoned from the want of encouragement, aggravated as it

is by the compulsory delivery of eleven copies to the Universities. It appears that before the passing of the Act of 1814, the Universities were looked up to (and with strict propriety), as Subscribers or Purchasers of such laborious and useful works; whereas now the effect is, that the gratuitous delivery not only destroys the sale of those eleven copies, but interferes with the sale of several copies to persons who would otherwise be purchasers, had they not access to the Public Libraries. For a masterly article, exposing the injustice and impolicy of the Copy-right Acts, see No. XLI. of the Quarterly Review, for May 1819.

V. K. M. wishes particularly to know why Oxford obtained the name of "Rhedycina," as it is used by respectable au. thors, and in many modern Latin compositions.

"A Constant Reader," would be obliged by being informed if a Work in any way answering to our Army List was published in the time of Charles I. and the Civil Wars; and also to point out the way in which the Regiments were then raised, if by the Colonels, and in the counties to which those Colonels belonged.

"An Enquirer" desires to know who was the author of a very curious and ably written defence of O. Cromwell bearing this title, "A short Critical Review of the political Life of O. Cromwell, Lord Protector, &c. By a Gentleman of the Middle Temple." His copy is of the 4th edition, Glasgow, 1755, 8vo. Is this the work supposed to have been written by B shop Gibson, of which Mr. Noble speaks in the introduction to his "Memoirs of the Cromwell family?"

LATHBURIENSIS requests some information respecting a book entitled, "The Life of Mrs. Margaret Andrewes of Lathbury, 1680," and who the person therein mentioned was; also of a school there in the time of Queen Elizabeth, of which the Shepherd; and whether Francis the first Lord Annesley was born at Newport Pagnel, of which place he was created baron.

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